Family Dollar's Matthew Martin defines value at Emerson Retail Industry Day

PHILADELPHIA — Is your emerging economy in your backyard? That’s a question that Matthew Martin, VP marketing at Family Dollar, posed to attendees of the Emerson Group Retail Industry Day as he described how Family Dollar defines value and what it is doing to better meet the needs of its core shopper.

“Many of you work for global organizations that are organizing around emerging economies around the world. What if your emerging economy is in your backyard? What if you don’t have to go to Africa and Asia and some of these other places?” Martin told attendees during his presentation titled, “Value = Quality ÷ Price: Building Loyalty — It Starts and Ends with Our Customers.” “Because I’m going to talk to you about a customer who ought to be on your radar screen.”

Enter the value shopper.

With a network of more than 8,000 stores in rural and urban settings across 46 states, Family Dollar strives to help families save on the items they need with everyday low prices and create a strong bond with it consumers.

Who is the core Family Dollar consumer? Here’s some stats:

• 
  56% earn less than $40,000 per year;


• 
  31% have children under the age of 18 years;


• 
  50% are on some kind of government assistance;


• 
  58% stick to brands and stores they can afford;


• 
  25% live in multi-generational households; and


• 
  66% of baskets are less than $10.

Despite these eye-opening stats, Martin urged attendees to remember that these shoppers are not simply statistics.

“They don’t believe that they are poor. They are some of the most hopeful people that I have ever met,” Martin said. “They want to feel valued, and they don’t necessarily always feel that way.”

He went on to share some ways in which Family Dollar is working to better communicate and meet the needs of the value shopper.

One such example is its recently expanded food assortment. As part of the new food rollout, TV personality and chef Pat Neely participated in several special events, such as a recipe challenge, to spread the word about the values customers can find in the store.

Another example is the company’s first vlogger event held last year to promote its ethnic hair care offering. The event proved successful with the company doubling the run rates on those items featured in the vlogger outreach.

Then there’s price. “Price has to be the right price, when she needs it and when she has the money, not when we want to do a promotion and what makes sense on our calendars,” Martin said. “So, our initiative you’ve seen from us about getting back to everyday low price is not necessarily a new idea across retail, we understand that. But everyday low price takes on a particularly different meaning for our customer, and we have to be right on that price every day.”

“Quality, experience and price. That’s how we define value,” Martin said.